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Picture this: a happy Rasmus Højlund in a Napoli shirt. Now, place it with a dejected Benjamin Sesko sporting United's jersey, looking as if he just missed an open goal. Don't worry locating an actual photo of that miss; background information is your adversary. Then, include some goal stats in a large, silly font. Don't forget the emojis. Share the image everywhere.

Would you point out that Højlund's goal count features scores in the Champions League while Sesko does not compete in Europe? Certainly not. And will you note that four of the Dane's goals came against weaker national sides, or that Denmark is much stronger to Slovenia and generates far more chances. You manage social media for a major brand, raw engagement is your livelihood, United are the biggest draw, and context is the thing to avoid.

So the wheel of content spins. The next job is to scan a 44-minute interview featuring Peter Schmeichel and find the part where he calls the signing of Sesko "weird". Just before, where he qualifies his comments by saying, "I have nothing bad to say about Benjamin Sesko"... yes, remove that part. No one needs that. Just make sure "weird" and "Sesko" appear together in the headline. The audience will be outraged.

The Season of Potential and Premature Judgment

The heart of fall has long been one of my preferred times to observe football. The leaves swirl, winds shift, the teams and tactics are newly formed, everything is new and yet patterns are emerging. Key players of the season ahead are planting their flags. The transfer window is closed. No one is talking about the multiple trophies yet. All teams are in contention. Right now, anything is possible.

However, for similar reasons, mid-autumn has long been one of my least favourite times to consume news on football. For while nothing has yet been settled, opinions must be formed immediately. Jack Grealish is reborn. The German talent has been a crushing disappointment. Could Semenyo be the top performer in the league at this moment? Please a decision now.

Sesko as The Prime Example

And for numerous reasons, Benjamin Sesko feels like Patient Zero in this context, a player inextricably trapped between football's opposing, unavoidable forces. The need to delay definitive judgment, allowing technical development and strategic understanding to mature. And the imperative to produce permanent definitive judgment, a constant stream of opinions and memes, context-free criticisms and meaningless contrasts, a puzzle that can not truly be circled.

I do not propose to provide a substantive evaluation of Sesko's stint at Manchester United to date. He has been in the lineup on four occasions in the top flight in a highly unpredictable team, scored two goals, and had a mere of 116 touches. What precisely are we evaluating? And do I propose to duplicate Gary Neville's and Ian Wright's seminal masterwork "Argument Over Benjamin Sesko", in which two famous analysts duel passionately on a popular show over whether Sesko needs ten strikes to be deemed successful this year (Neville), or whether it is more like twelve or thirteen (Wright).

A Harsh Reality

Despite this I enjoyed watching Sesko at his former club: a powerful, fast sports car of a forward, playing in a team ideally suited to his talents: afforded the freedom to rampage but also the freedom to fail. Partly this is why Manchester United feels like the cruellest place he could possibly be at the moment: a place where "harsh judgments" are summarily issued in about the time it takes to load a short advertisement, the club with the largest and most ruthless gulf between the time and air he requires, and the opportunity he is likely to receive.

We saw an example of this over the national team pause, when a viral infographic handily informed us that Sesko had been judged – by a wide margin – the worst signing of the recent market by a poll of football representatives. Naturally, the media are by no means alone in this. Team social media, influencers, anonymous X accounts with a oddly high number of pornbot followers: all parties with a vested interest is now basically operating along the same principles, an environment deliberately geared for provocation.

The Mental Cost

Scroll, scroll, tap, scroll. What are we doing to ourselves? Are we aware, on some level, what this endless sluice of aggravation is doing to our brains? Separate from the inherent strangeness of playing in the middle of this, knowing on a bizarre chain-reaction level that each aspect about players is now essentially material, commodity, open-source property to be packaged and exchanged.

Indeed, partly this is because it's Manchester United, the entity that keeps nourishing the cycle, a big club that must always be producing the big feelings. But also, partly this is a seasonal affliction, a pendulum of opinion most visibly and harshly glimpsed at this time of year, roughly four weeks after the window has closed. Throughout the summer we have been coveting footballers, eulogising them, salivating over them. Now, only a handful of games later, many of those same players are already being dismissed as failures. Should we start to be concerned about a new signing? Was Arsenal's purchase of Viktor Gyökeres wise? What was the purpose of Randal Kolo Muani?

The Bigger Picture

It seems fitting that Sesko faces their rivals on Sunday: a team simultaneously 13 months unbeaten at their stadium in the league and yet in their own situation of feverish crisis, like submitting a a report on someone who popped to the store 30 minutes ago. Defensively suspect. Mohamed Salah finished. The striker waste of money. Arne Slot bald.

Maybe we have not yet quite grasped the way the narrative of football has started to replace football the actual game, to inflect the way we view it, an whole competition repivoted around discussion topics and reaction, an activity that occurs in the backdrop while we browse through our phones, incapable to disconnect from the saline drip of takes and further hot takes. Perhaps this player bearing the brunt right now. But in a way, we're all sacrificing a part of the experience here.